The networked computing environment (e.g., cloud computing environment) is an enhancement to the predecessor grid environment, whereby multiple grids and other computation resources may be further enhanced by one or more additional abstraction layers (e.g., a cloud layer), thus making disparate devices appear to an end-consumer as a single pool of seamless resources. These resources may include such things as physical or logical computing engines, servers and devices, device memory, and storage devices, among others.
A cloud environment makes it easy for cloud providers to automate the provisioning of resources such as standardized server and desktop images for end users. This automation is an important benefit of cloud computing, as provisioning standardized resources does not typically require much customization and configuration. Challenges may exist, however, in that not all cloud consumers are at the same skill level, and therefore not all users should be granted the same usage privileges. Currently, the management of a user's privilege level is a manual process whereby a review of the user's expertise is manually performed and a corresponding privilege given based on what an administrator believes is appropriate. Given that many organizations have a large number of users whose expertise levels may change over time, such manual processes may be time consuming and inefficient.